Morgan finds a horse with a saddle and no rider. Carol is being stalked by one of the Survivors she shot. Meanwhile, some poor guy from yet another group that crossed Negan gets run down by some saviors. They promptly beat the hell out of him and then drag him into the middle of the road, creating a road block for Rick and the crew.

Enid is unhappy that Carl is going with Rick and the others to Hilltop — they need to get help for Maggie. Her pregnancy is in major trouble and Hilltop has an OB/GYN. Carl doesn’t want Enid to go with them, so for her own safety, he locks her in a closet. Before he leaves, he tells her, “Just survive somehow.” The RV leaves for Hilltop with Rick, Carl, Aaron, Abraham, Sasha, Maggie and Eugene.

This leaves Father Gabriel and Spencer in charge of Alexandria. Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with that?

Morgan finds Carol, but she’s wounded and weary. He gets her safely inside a library, even though she doesn’t want his help. She argues with him about why she has to leave and he says that she needs to go home with him. She pulls a gun on Morgan but drops it and tearfully asks him to leave. He goes out to kill a walker and when he comes back, she’s gone. He takes off on the horse to find her.

After a tense confrontation in the road with some Survivors, Rick and his crew end up leaving and looking for an alternate route to Hilltop. In a sweet moment, Abraham asks Sasha if she would be willing to have a baby with him because he wants that with her.

A-dor-a-ble.

But that moment of sweetness is short-lived because around the bend waits another roadblock of Survivors. Rick (again) opts not to engage in a fight and backs up the RV while the Survivors shoot into the air.

A little while later, you guessed it, another roadblock. But this time it’s a line of chained-up walkers — with Michonne’s dreadlocks and Daryl’s arrow stuck on them. No bueno. Gunfire breaks out. Rick gets rid of the walkers and they drive the RV through.

Meanwhile, Carol gets tackled by a walker and then by the Survivor who’s been tracking her. He’s super ticked and shoots her in the arm … and then in the leg. She wants to die and tells him she deserves to suffer. When he walks away, she tells him that he has to choose. Morgan shows up and asks the guy to drop his gun. When he doesn’t … Morgan shoots and kills him. Then out of nowhere, a couple of guys on horseback, who strongly resemble apocalyptic knights, show up and offer help to him and Carol.

This time it’s a giant tree/log pile that the Survivors set on fire. Our group gets in the RV and retreats. Maggie is in really bad shape at this point.

But guess what? There’s yet another roadblock. This time it’s literally a pyramid of Survivors — looking like an apocalyptic cheerleading squad. Seriously? How many people does Negan have in his employ?

Eugene comes up with a decoy plan. He’ll take off with the RV, which is what the Survivors are looking for, and Rick and the others can take off on foot. Before he leaves, Eugene gives Rick a recipe for bullet making and then he has a sweet bromance goodbye with Abraham.

I’ll admit it. I cried when they hugged it out and Abraham tells him that he always knew Eugene was a survivor. **sniffs**

Rick and the others are carrying Maggie through the woods on a stretcher, but when eerie whistling floats through the air, they run right into a circle of whistling Survivors. Hands down, the creepiest moment on the show so far.

They have the RV. Eugene is on his knees. Our group gets their weapons taken and they’re all forced to the ground with poor Eugene. Daryl (who’s been shot), Michonne, Rosita and Glenn get pulled out of a van and put with the others.

And then … we meet … Negan.

Are we peeing in our pants yet? Yes. Yes, we are.

After a lengthy, charismatic and terrifying monologue … Negan uses his barbed-wire-covered bat named Lucille to beat somebody’s head in.

WHO. IS. IT?!

They aren’t going to tell us until the season seven premiere in October.

We may not know who fell victim to Negan’s bat, but there was one death we all clearly witnessed. Last night, we saw the murder of Rick’s spirit. Negan stripped him of his power and that was more painful to watch than anything else.

To ease the torture, how about an interview with the always adorable, Norman Reedus?

I was lucky enough to score a phone call with him. He’s gracious and funny and sounds as delicious as you would expect.

Sara: Hi, Norman, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me today. I know how busy you are.

Norman: It’s my pleasure.

Sara: You express your creativity through several different outlets — acting, writing, directing and photography. If you could choose only one form of creative expression, what would it be and why?

Norman: Surfing! I just got into surfing and it’s one of my new favorite things. I’m horrible at it, but I’m loving it. I could literally disappear …

Sara: A lot of face planting?

Norman: There’s a lot of ocean drinking … it’s kind of my new favorite thing. I’m really getting into it, but I’m really awful at it. I just learned how to turn recently … I’m really into it.

Sara: Daryl’s character arc has been really interesting. We’ve seen him go from a boy to a man and he’s kind of come into his own. If he survives Negan’s arrival, what kind of growth would you hope to see for him in the future?

Norman: If I could see that guy become calm and just smile … I’ve always said that he’s the type of guy who needs a hug, but if he ever got to that Zen spot where he was giving hugs, I think that would be a complete turnaround for that guy. For him to realize it’s OK to be you, you know?

Sara: That leads into my next question. Right before Denise got killed, she was in the middle of this wonderful come-to-Jesus moment with Rosita and Daryl. She was telling them to just get over their stuff! What do you think she was referring to for Daryl?

Norman: Well, you know, the chip on his shoulder, if he could just let it go, then he could start living. It sucks that’s the kind of world they’re living in, but her whole thing was that she couldn’t tell her girl that she loved her … Daryl reminded her of her brother. I think maybe he had the same sort of thing. She felt safe and protected around him, but he had an anger about him. I think a lot of anger comes from insecurity, and I think she could see the insecurity in Daryl, and that’s why he was angry and she was trying to break ground with him on a different level, and I think he knew exactly what she was talking about.

Sara: Personally, I thought some of your best work was in episode six this season. There was that one moment when Daryl had run into the group in the woods, and he was debating about whether or not to take Dwight and the others back to Alexandria, and he had to ask them the three questions. It just made it that much more heartbreaking when Dwight betrayed him and stole his bike and crossbow.

Norman: Yeah, I remember shooting that scene, and one of the things that was most prominent in the back of my head during that episode, and especially that scene, was: Don’t let Rick down. If this goes wrong, you’re letting down everyone. Everybody that watches the show knows what that means … they know what is coming. I didn’t want to let anyone down. Me personally, I kind of zeroed in on Rick. Then, of course, it all went horribly wrong. I think, sometimes, when you act out of passion and you don’t use your brain, you end up paying for it in all areas of life. I think that was one of those moments. He let his guard down and he trusted them … same thing when he went after them for revenge. He didn’t think. He got snuck up on and paid the price. The whole mind, body and soul thing, I think Daryl hasn’t really connected those three yet.

Norman Reedus as Daryl and Emily Kinney as Beth in season four. (Photo: Gene Page, AMC)

Sara: What has been your most vulnerable moment as an actor on The Walking Dead? Where you really just went to a place you didn’t even know you could go?

Norman: Oh, man, carrying Beth out was kind of a hard one. That was interesting because, there’s a little bit of a time jump. I didn’t want to start crying carrying her out. I wanted to be exhausted from crying already when I’m carrying her out. So off camera you have to flood yourself and just open up that levy, so to speak, and then go into it. That was a calculated flood, and I did that sitting on an Igloo chest full of water in a corner, by myself, before we shot it. I learned early on … one of the first things I ever did I had to ball and cry and lose it. The director was like, “Well, how do you want to prepare.” And I was like, “Well, what are my options?” I was really brand new, you know, I got on the phone and called my dad, who wasn’t doing well, and just had a normal conversation. Then I came out and did what they wanted.

Sara: Daryl got his crossbow and his bike back, and I remember thinking, you know, that might be the closest to a happily ever after that Daryl gets.

Norman: I love that there’s all this romance happening on the show and mine is with two inanimate objects. What the hell?

Sara: Not for lack of fan desire. People want nothing more than to hook you up with someone. I personally am shipping Daryl and Jesus. That could kinda work, but I don’t know if anyone else is rooting for that, but I think it could be interesting.

Norman: (Laughs) Oh, man, that’s funny!

Sara: Well, after watching the chase scene with Daryl and Jesus, the kind of Keystone Cops moment …

Norman: You know, when we were rehearsing that one bit, I fell out of the truck and hit my head and got a concussion. So the beginning of that run is a stunt double. I kind of snapped out of a concussion at the end, like, let’s do some more running! The Benny Hill song they put to it … that was great.

Sara: OK, last question. Since we focus on books here at HEA, what kind of book would you choose to read in your free time?

Norman: I would probably pick up Venus in Furs. It’s something I read a long, long time ago. It’s a dark, sexually vivid book. There’s a song, actually, a Velvet Underground song called Venus in Furs, and it’s because I’ve been hanging out with Mick Rock a lot. He gave me a new print of Lou Reed and I started listening to Venus in Furs again and I started thinking about that book … I also have (Sean Patrick) Flanery’s book on my coffee table, Jane Two. I’ll probably be reading that next.

Sara: Thanks again for chatting with me. You’ve been a doll!

Norman: You bet. Take care!

Sara: If you need a Norman Reedus fix before October, be sure to tune in to his hot new show coming to AMC in June: RIDE with Norman Reedus.

Sara Humphreys

Sara Humphreys is the bestselling author of paranormal and contemporary romance. Her next release, Trouble Walks In, arrives in August. You can find her at sarahumphreys.com and on Twitter (@authorsara).